Innocent Monsters
by SkullszEyes
Summary: Vanoss is taken on a mission with Delirious to retrieve a briefcase for Lui. To Vanoss's annoyance, Delirious won't tell him anything. Vanoss, however, realizes that his friends and himself live in a dangerous world that he's indifferent too and it scares him. M for foul language and death.


**oOo**

* * *

He had his day planned out, playing games, editing, possibly take a nap and chill out for the remainder of the day. It wasn't until his best friend decided to sneak into his room without tripping the alarms and push him off the bed. The gun underneath his pillow and under his bed were gone, in the hands of his mask wearing friend who was now on the bed. He felt the anger welling up inside of him and wanted to throw him in the pool and fall back to sleep.

Instead, Delirious convinced him to go to the industrial end of the city during the middle of the night. It was chilly and he was still wondering why he was there, gun in hand, switchblade tucked in his inside pocket of his dark sweater.

Delirious didn't want him wearing his red jacket since it'd stand out right away. It was a stupid excuse when Delirious wore his bright blue sweater, including his mask.

"Out of everyone you could have chosen," Vanoss grumbled, head ducked, "why did you have to pick me?"

Delirious looked back, lips quirked into a grin. "Quit complaining. I needed your help and you're alarm system is the only one I can get by. Have you ever tried Lui's, it's impossible."

"He's not as simple minded as you," Vanoss mumbled, already thinking of getting himself a new alarm system and changing the password.

He wasn't sure of Delirious's plan, or why they were sneaking around factories until he caught sight of a flashlight and two men talking a few feet ahead. He slowed his breathing, and made sure he didn't make a noise as he held the gun with both hands. It was like an anchor, holding him still, not wanting to fall to instinct, not yet anyway.

He and his friends weren't mercenaries, they never got proper training. But what they did was nothing but instinct. It was something that grew inside of them. Vanoss never tried to join another group, to gain knowledge when he worked well with his friends.

This wasn't one of those moments, usually solo missions were ordered between whatever contact there was. Whoever was good at driving a car while being shot at, or a helicopter, or even assassinations.

In all likeliness, Vanoss was good with his partner-in-crime, Delirious. This wasn't a mission though, nothing that was explained right away when Delirious asked if his gun had a silencer, only to receive a glare.

"I'm not an amature," Vanoss retorted.

Delirious shrugged, "I was just asking." He had his own gun, but preferred his knife to stealth attacks more than direct ones. Although some of their friends say that Delirious is good with demolition, that's the only reason why Vanoss always figured they were good together since Vanoss himself is a crack shot. Able to use any type of gun and hit his target. He tried to boast about it too much, but as he held the gun and waited for the precise moment for clarity.

Delirious moved quick once the flashlight turned a smidge away from them, he was like a monster, a shadow, something that darkness itself would be afraid of. He was quiet as Vanoss followed him, and with a spray of blood from the first victim, Delirious moved to the second and didn't waste time flipping off the light and setting the bodies away from any curious eyes that would come looking for their missing sentries.

Vanoss pressed his back against the wall, looking around the corner before glancing back at Delirious who was wiping off the blood on his blue sweater. It was already bloody, his mask smeared with it. Looking more like the monster he wanted everyone to think he was.

"You could've done this yourself," Vanoss said.

Delirious shrugged his shoulders, a soft chuckle escaped his lips. "What would be the fun in that?"

Vanoss was immune to the sight of blood, to gore, to the death of others. His fears and disgust faded in time, some would say it was a tragedy because of how young he was. But he never thought of it as one, maybe experience was a better word since his friends were the same. They were all monsters - laughing, uncontrollable monsters.

"Briefcase, second floor, right side," Delirious muttered to him.

Vanoss frowned, brows furrowed as he looked at Delirious. "Serious? We're here for a fucking briefcase."

"Lui needs it."

"Why didn't he get it himself?"

"Busy on a different mission," Delirious responded.

Vanoss grumbled, he didn't want to ask what they were up too. He did feel out of the loop and it made him uncomfortable. He wanted to know, but it'll have to wait. Questioning Delirious about his motives right now would only get the attention of the other guards.

He looked around the corner and counted the guards stationed along the staircases and the large trucks at the end, two were close to them, but he didn't count them as important. There was something that did catch his eye and it made his heart jolt as he reached back and grabbed Delirious's arm.

"There's a chopper on the other end."

"What? Really?" he asked, sidling in front of Vanoss, their chests barely touching as he looked around the corner and chuckled as he moved back.

"Looks like we got our exit."

Vanoss didn't want to think of how they were going to get out originally. According to Delirious's methods, improvising was always his tactic.

"So," Vanoss asked, glancing around, trying his best to locate the best way to the second floor without getting caught and shot at. "How are we going to maneuver around?"

"Lights," Delirious said, "shoot them out and I'll take out the guards.

Vanoss frowned. "You're enthusiastic about this."

"Yeah, Nogla said he'd order pizza by two so I'd like to get this done."

Vanoss wasn't surprised by this as he pointed his gun at the light thirty feet above several guards and hoped he didn't miss. It shattered as he shot the other. Darkness fell into the warehouse quick, but he'll have to get closer to the others if he wants to shoot them out. Delirious went to work as he took out his gun and began shooting, his maniacal laughter chilled the air as Vanoss went to his right, killing off a few guards that couldn't see in the dark.

Vanoss had troubles maneuvering around, but he managed to kill enough to shoot out two other lights. Bringing a momentum to his efforts as he kicked one man to the ground, pulled the trigger as his brain sprayed along the cement. He didn't look back as he went running to the other end, shooting the ones above him and stopping for a second only to realize Delirious was no longer laughing.

His heart pounded and a sick feeling washed over him. He sprinted across to the left side only to see Delirious jump off a crate and land on a man he shot down. From the darkness and the remaining light, Vanoss felt a tremor of fear as he headed back to the stairs and pushed himself to the second floor. He looked through the rooms and stopped in the control room, his gun aimed at a man who had his hands up, spouting out nonsense that Vanoss wasn't interested in hearing.

He had no bullets in his gun so he knocked the man out before watching a recording of himself and Delirious killing so many people in seconds. He wrinkled his nose, tore out the memory and destroyed it before looking for the prize. Delirious was at the bottom, waving his hands, he was soaked in blood, his clothes stained darker than when he started and from the way he tucked his gun into his pocket. He had run out as well.

Vanoss found a laptop, he opened it up and bit his lower lip in frustration. He figured this was what Delirious and Lui wanted. Finding, to his surprise, in which he shouldn't have been, a briefcase sitting on the floor underneath the equipment. He zipped it up with the laptop tucked inside and left the room.

There were a lot of questions he'd like to ask Lui, but for now, they needed to survive the escape. He was at the stairs when he caught sight of several armed trucks moving into the warehouse, bullets streamed through the darkness, several hitting the stairs in pings.

Vanoss clenched his teeth, hand gripping his empty gun and the briefcase. "Delirious," he called.

"Jump," Delirious yelled, his head popped out of a window of one of the armoured trucks that was left near the exit. "I'll catch you."

 _I heard that before._ Vanoss hopped over the railing and fell, the truck backed up fast and he landed in the back with a groan. The bullets shot at the tailgate as Vanoss kept his head down. Delirious sped the truck closer to the pier where the helicopter was. He crashed into a tanker and squeezed past a container before stopping beside the helicopter.

Vanoss panted, his body shook with adrenaline but exhaustion was hitting his body fast as he scrambled out of the truck and almost fell when Delirious grabbed a hold of him. Pushing him back against the truck to dodge the spray of bullets, out of the both of them, Delirious looked the least tired.

"I'll cover you," Delirious said, hand gripping his arm. "Get the helicopter going."

Vanoss's mouth felt dry as he nodded. Delirious gritted his teeth, shoving a half clip of bullets into his gun before running off to the edge of the pier where the darkness was able to hide him. Vanoss didn't waste time as he moved around the truck, watched as several men took position before Delirious began shooting them with the rounds he had.

He cursed this night, wishing for his warm bed and the silence in his home. He cursed Delirious and his bad alarm system, and he mostly cursed whatever mission this was and why he wasn't included in the information. He didn't complain as he opened the door, sat down on the seat, set the briefcase and gun down, not even bothering to care as they fell to the floor and hotwired the helicopter.

Adrenaline was making him weak, his mind raced, but it went in circles and when he got the helicopter working. His hands tightened on the steering wheel before signaling Delirious that he's ready as the rotors began spinning and Delirious ran, head ducked and his gun out, pulling the trigger but nothing spit out.

He rounded the helicopter and slipped inside, heaving breaths left his lips as he took off his mask and wiped his forehead. Vanoss steered the helicopter until it was off the ground and away from the warehouses. Several bullets pelted the sides and hit the blades, but it didn't stop them until they were miles away.

Whatever they were hiding, they didn't want the police to know about it. Night was a good camouflage, they basically melted into it.

"I want to know what's in that," Vanoss said, not bothering to sugarcoat it. "I want to know what I risked my life for."

"We've been compromised by a fellow hacker," Delirious said, grabbing the briefcase and placing it on his lap. "Lui tracked them down after he learned all of our information was being sent out of the country if we didn't do anything by tonight. Wildcat, Ohm, Basically and Moo went after the hacker and the militia he's hiding behind. They were the distraction while we went for the briefcase."

Vanoss didn't like what he just heard. He turned his head slowly to look at Delirious, brows creased as he scowled at him. "And you didn't bother telling me about this. I deserved to know."

Delirious nodded, "Yeah. I know. I wanted to tell you right, but thing is, Bryce, Terrorizer, Miniladd and Silentdroidd are also in the dark about this. They're all sleeping in their beds right now with no idea that they could've been killed if our information was sent out. We were all targets but this mission only needed so little to finish and making everyone panic was unnecessary."

"Are you quoting Wildcat or Lui?" Vanoss asked, lowering the helicopter near the hangar.

"That.. doesn't matter," Delirious said, wiping off the blood from his mask, some of it stained, but Vanoss couldn't careless as he set the helicopter down and he slipped out, ignoring Delirious.

There was a sleek black car waiting near the hangar and as he got in, pulling down the visor to grasp the keys. He did not care as he started it up while Delirious yelled his name.

"Don't get pissy just because no one told you our lives were on the line."

He felt pissed, but he also felt tired. Exhausted. He needed a warm bath, TV, food and something cold to drink. But he stopped and unlocked the car. He also wanted pizza.

"Where's Lui and Nogla?" he asked Delirious as he got into the passenger seat.

"At Lui's."

"Seriously?" he drove out of the area and along the dark street. They were an hour away from the city and from the time, it was almost two in the morning.

"No one ever hits Lui," Delirious said, which was pretty true. No one ever did, maybe because Lui always knew when someone was going to attack him, or at least planning too.

By the time they reached the city, Delirious had fallen asleep, his head leaned against the window. Vanoss didn't say anything as he listened to music and stopped in front of the Lui's apartment. To his surprise, his friends were there, several familiar cars parked along the street.

He shook Delirious awake and they both got out. Wildcat was the first to greet them as he opened the door, naked besides a pair of shorts and leopard printed boots. He held a beer in his hand as he flailed his arms.

"You're alive."

"Barely," Vanoss said, grinning as they walked inside where a smell of pizza met his nose.

"That smells delicious," Delirious said, kicking off his shoes and slipping past Vanoss to grab himself a slice.

Vanoss looked at them all, glad they were all alive and well. Lui was sitting at the table, a beer in front of him, typing on a laptop before looking up at Delirious who placed the briefcase down.

Vanoss stood beside Delirious, wanting to know what it is. Lui opened the briefcase and took out the laptop, attached a drive to it and a cord. It took several minutes for him to break the password and download most of the information.

He looked at his friends faces and saw the anticipation. "I want you all to get rid of your phones. I'll update our informations, put up firewalls, make sure some backdoors are shut. And if someone else knows about us, I'll find out."

There was a subtly about Lui that some wouldn't pick up. But like what Vanoss saw in the warehouse with Delirious, what he felt when he saw him kill and the blood drenching his clothes. There was a tiny sliver of fear in him and as he looked at each of his friends, how they fought together, killed people, did what they had to do and grew away from disgust and anguish, becoming more familiar in violence and making it seem like fun.

He realized with perfect certainty that they were all monsters in an innocent light.

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 **fin.**

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 **Notes:** _So, I wanted to write more fanfics of their friendship because I didn't ship them right away and I do enjoy their dynamics. :D And I'm terrible at writing romance. Anyway, this idea was born from a prompt that I read on Tumblr, 'Out of everyone you could have chosen, why did you have to pick me?'_

 _And I inspired a bit of this from Vanoss's gta5 video, 'Vanoss Therapy Sessions and ALRIGHT company!' - This was actually the first video I watched of Vanoss and his friends. :D I wanted to write Vanoss having a type of perspective of his own dealings with killing and such, and realizing his friends were so normal with killing that it frightened him._

 _(There is some complications with the fandom since Evan and Sydney are no longer dating because some shippers are forcing h2oVanoss on them. :/ Which is quite rude and immature.)_

 _Reviews are appreciated. No flames or bashing please._


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